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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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220331 MN-IN 1 cement mixer heading to Merrillville IN 1 (?) truck heading to Lake Elmo MN (Friday) ... spending the night at Merrillville IN BIG NEWS early this AM, the pay to move all IA RV's is going up. Another 11 hour day. We hope to drop first thing in the AM and pick up the next one by 10 AM and head home. Six hours from pick up to home. The drop closes at 4 PM so not likely we will make that. Load board US - 572 IA - 358/350 220401 IL-MN 1 cement mixer heading to Merrillville IN (delivered) 1 boom truck heading to Lake Elmo MN (stagged) ... spending the night at home Breakfast was eggs and sausage. We were both up early so we thought we might get going early but that did not happen. The drop had opened at 7 AM but we left our hotel at the usual 7:30 and got there a few minutes later. When we are getting breakfast, we see on the news that there was a major crash on I-65. We check it out online and see that it is just past where we will be getting onto I-80 so it will not effect us. 1st stop - at the customer, the gates are still closed so I park on the street and call my contact. They open the gates, tell me where to park ... and talk to BB. At first the contact just looks at the truck from a distance and signs off, then I tell them that they must check the boxes and at that point they decide to do a complete check of the truck including re-starting it and checking all the lights. At some point I realized that he had gotten a different inspection sheet than I had so he was now checking things that I had not. So this ended up being a half hour inspection. And sometime during the inspection, likely when he opened the hood, he got the paperwork all wet. I was afraid that it was going to fall apart so I spread it out in the car instead of making copies to send to the office. We are supposed to send copies as soon as they are signed. This place is supposed to be the check in place of a major cement company in the Chicago area but the person checking me in did not seem to know the routine. Leaving the first drop we are still close to on time. Traffic is past rush hour so it is a little lighter. I get behind a couple of trucks that are going close(r) to the speed limit so I stay behind them even when they drop below the speed limit. Most people seem more willing to accept a truck going slower than cars going slow. 2nd stop was an oasis near Lake Forest. BB wants to use the restroom before we get to the drop and by now my paperwork is dry so that we can scan it and send it in. Opps, I forgot to do my AM call in this morning. Plan had been to have my truck delivered and paperwork sent in so that no call in was required. The truck was delivered by dispatch had no way of knowing that. Google maps gets us to the drop and ... it is a pond. I find a place to park and call the drop. They give me directions based on which buildings I can see. (Looking online now, Google shows it in the correct location. BB's iPhone still lists it in the wrong place) Based on the odd-even numbering, the location should be in the pond. 3rd stop - the truck is sitting out, so I should be ready to go. As soon as we find the keys, :) , I check the fluids and then as I am getting in the cab I see it ... The bed of the truck is full of gravel and junk. I take pictures and call dispatch. And we settle in to wait. Dispatch does not want me taking the truck as is. It didn't take long to get that resolved, the shipper will clean it up. I guess last night someone was told to park the truck outside the gate ... which they did. They were not told why they were parking it there or to get it 'road ready.' ... a couple of hours later the truck comes back, mostly clean. It looks like they had shoveled all the rock out of it. I was expecting it to be swept clean but it was not so there was a fair amount of rocks still on the bed. But the 'magnet' is now in it's welded holding place, not loose in the back. And now being held down by the weight of the boom so it should not be going anywhere. I tell the guy it is good and he is gone, I get my truck a little more ready before I hop in and ... BEEEEEEEEEEEP. So I look on my phone and call the IL number ... but I do not look at the time of the call. I tell them that the truck is just a few feet from where they had parked it. After a few more questions they ask I realize that I am talking to my drop from early this AM :) :) Opps. Then I call the correct person and they send out a mechanic in a few minutes. When he came there he said 'hello.' When he had to leave to get something, he said 'he would be right back' When he was done he said 'It's ready.'' He started working on the truck without seeming to figure out where it was coming from and never did say what or why it was going off. But finally, 2-1/2 hours later I am really good to go ... then dispatch calls back and wants to make sure that all the loose rocks off the bed of the truck are picked off. By now BB has left and is calling me, twice. First she calls to tell me that we can not get back onto the freeway the way we came ... oh yeah ... I forgot about that. Then she calls back to say to not follow the computer routing. So I look at a map and find my own way. The WI welcome scale is open but I get the bypass lane. BB was just a few minutes ahead of me and it had been closed when she went past. No working cruise but the truck will do 70 mph and that is the speed limit and that is what it is governed at. So I just put it to the floor and let it stay right there. I do have a half a tank of fuel so I hope I do not have to stop often. 4th stop is for fuel at the TA in De Forest. One pump open so I can fuel right away, but then I have to wait for the person ahead of me to pull out. They are the only truck that is blocking a fuel island. I had taken a guess and I was off by half. 5th stop was for fuel at the Pilot in Mauston to add as much fuel as I did an hour ago. This should get me to the drop with a quarter of a tank of fuel. Last stop I had texted BB to let her know where I was, then I remembered that we get an email when I fuel so she will know where I am. Because of the time we lost (We could have eaten while we waited, Culvers was a block away,) I decided I would just eat a PopTart in the tuck ... the truck was already plenty dirty. The first PopTart I tried had ripped open and it was chocolate. It was in a silver wrapper so I had no idea what it was. The second PopTart I had picked up less than a week ago and was good. That was lunch. Now it was after 5 PM so I was going to grab a good 'roller dog' at Pilot. But they didn't have anything I wanted. So I settled for a roller cheeseburger stick and a steak and cheese something else. It was food. 6th stop was the office lot. The drop had closed at 4 PM so someone else will get to deliver this truck on Monday AM. And I do bring it in with just over one quarter tank. Without buses, this is as full as I have seen this lot. Someone is dropping a driver off and then he comes over to talk. He used to be a shuttle driver but had to 'quit' because he broke his leg. So now he is driving shuttle drivers from the airport or to their trucks. BB had stopped at McD's to get food so she had gotten me a McDouble. More food. 7th and final stop is home. It has been another 12 hour day and a long week. But a good paying week. Lots of work here if I wanted to keep doing this for this company. ... no plans for tomorrow or next week yet. Just get a weeks worth of paperwork sorted and sent in tomorrow. Load board US - 597 IA - 328/320
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